“Yes… yes, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?” Himmler slowly nodded. “You’re quite right. Dr. Goddard should be investigated. I’ll have to request that the Abwehr look into this. Perhaps their operatives may learn something new.”
“It would be prudent,” von Braun said carefully. Let them take their time, he silently added. The longer it takes for them to find him, the safer we’ll be.
“Reichsführer, if we may…?” Dornberger stretched out his hand, beckoning them to return to the tour.
“Of course.” Himmler strode forward, his retinue in tow. Von Braun walked alongside Dornberger as he led them toward the nearby assembly shed. The guards snapped to attention, arms raised in rigid salutes. The Reichsführer ignored them as he allowed Dornberger to open the door. Von Braun stepped aside and let everyone enter the shed before him.
The shed held one of Peenemünde’s most closely guarded secrets. Ever since last Christmas, when a French spy had been caught lurking outside with a Minox camera, no one was allowed to enter without an identification card signed by both Dornberger and von Braun. The size of a large airplane hangar, it performed much the same role… but what was inside was no ordinary aircraft.
Heinrich Himmler stopped and stared at what appeared to be a completed and flight-ready Silbervogel. Resting upon its tricycle landing gear, nose pointed toward the shed’s double doors, the vehicle took up nearly half the enormous workspace. Fluorescent ceiling lights reflected off its burnished silver skin; rollaway ladders had been pushed up beside the fuselage, with one of them positioned next to the cockpit’s open canopy. The entire vessel looked like it was ready to be towed out to a launch rail that hadn’t yet been built.
“You’ve begun building it already?” Himmler asked, the eyes behind his glasses wide with awe.
“No, Herr Reichsführer.” Dornberger was grinning from ear to ear, obviously pleased by Himmler’s reaction. “This is a full-scale mock-up, used by our engineers to help them work out the design details. The airframe is made of white pine, with canvas stretched across it and painted to simulate the outer hull.”
“I see.” Himmler was obviously disappointed to find that this Silbervogel was nothing more than a model. Folding his hands together behind his back, he strolled toward the mock-up, giving it a cold and silent appraisal. “And the real craft, Colonel? Where is it?”
“On the other side of the mock-up,” von Braun said. “If you’ll follow me…”
Von Braun led him and his entourage around the mock-up; Himmler gave it little more than a passing look, no longer impressed now that he knew what it was. On the other side of the hangar, a skeletal frame lay half-finished upon a support cradle. Built of aluminum and stainless steel, it had a stubby bow but no nose, a pair of wings but no tail section. Bundles of multicolored wires were laced throughout the frame, held in place by black elastic tape. The cockpit lacked a canopy; in fact, it was nothing more than a small, empty tub, with neither instrument panel nor seat.
“This is it? This is all you’ve built so far?” Himmler’s disappointment turned to anger. He waved a dismissive hand at the craft as if it were nothing more than a child’s elaborate toy. “I’ve seen better work at the Junkers factory.”
Again, von Braun had to keep his temper in check. The arrogance and ignorance of this… this former poulterer… was appalling. “Herr Reichsführer,” he said, somehow managing to maintain an even voice, “the Junkers factory builds airplanes on an assembly line. What we’re doing here has never been attempted before… constructing a vehicle capable of penetrating Earth’s atmosphere and flying all the way around the world on a single tank of fuel. It is more than merely revolutionary. It is the future.”
Even as he said this, he knew that Himmler wasn’t listening. This ignorant little man had no appreciation for the groundbreaking work that still needed to be done before Silver Bird would be ready to fly. Even the fuselage would be a new development. Experiments had shown that the only material capable of withstanding multiple atmospheric entries was titanium, perhaps with a graphite coating along the underbelly and leading edges. Germany’s only source of titanium was in the Ukraine, though, where it would have to be mined even while the Army was struggling to hold the eastern front of the Russian invasion, and once that ore was extracted and shipped to Germany, it would still need to be subjected to the refinement process the Kroll laboratories had developed only a few years earlier.
If they were lucky, they’d have just enough titanium plating to cover the airframe, but the result would be an aeronautical advance generations ahead of anything done before. But try explaining any of that to a chicken farmer…
“Millions of Reichsmarks have been spent on this…!” Himmler snapped.
“And millions more will be spent before it’s complete,” von Braun said, and the Reichsführer glared at him, irritated by the interruption. “But when it’s done, the Fatherland will have a craft beyond imagination…”
“And a weapon that cannot be defended against or defeated,” Dornberger finished. “It will be worth the time and expense, sir. That I promise.”
Himmler was quiet for a full minute. He looked first at the skeletal airframe, then turned around to gaze at the mock-up. Once again, he clasped his hands together behind his back, but now he rocked back and forth on his heels, the toes of his boots softly tapping against the concrete floor.
“Twelve months,” he said at last, not looking at either Dornberger or von Braun. “You have twelve months to make this thing fly. Or the Führer and I will be… gravely disappointed.”
Without another word, he marched toward the door, his officers trailing along behind him.
SKID
JUNE 14, 1942
The rocket engine lay on its horizontal test bed, smoking in the desert sun. Sixty feet long, its components weren’t covered by an outer skin but instead lay exposed; a liquid-oxygen tank, a kerosene tank, and a liquid-nitrogen tank, with complex turbopumps feeding their contents into a rear-combustion chamber. The maw of the exhaust bell pointed toward the distant horizon, giving the engine the appearance of an enormous gun.
Five hundred yards away, a dozen men huddled within a trench protected by a wall of sandbags. Tripod-mounted periscopes jutted above the barricade along with a motion-picture camera, but most of the onlookers simply peered over the sandbags, ready to duck if anything went wrong. Electrical cables snaked across the sand from the test bed to a nearby diesel generator, which in turn was controlled by wires leading to the trench. A couple of minutes earlier, the tanker trucks that fueled the engine had driven away from the test area. Now the prototype engine was on its own, wreathed in cold oxygen fumes and quietly groaning in the heat of a New Mexico afternoon.
The engineers who’d built the engine were clustered around an instrument box, carefully watching the dials and meters registering the status of the engine’s fuel, pressure, and electrical systems. Finally satisfied, one of them looked over at the two Army officers standing nearby. “Ready when you are,” he said.
Colonel Bliss turned to Lieutenant Jackson. “Jack?”